Press Parts, Plates and Side Frames
Die Plates and Press Plates
Quick change die plates, die shoes and other press plates are often cut from mill certified ASTM A36, AISI 4140 HR & 4140 PH. PGI Steel stocks a large inventory of these grades of steel, in addition to also stocking hot rolled chemistry plate, 1045, A572 – 50, and A514. On-hand A36 inventory includes sizes from 1/4″ thick to 8″ thick. Our 1020, 1045 and 4140 inventory includes thicknesses up to 4″. Upon customer request, we inventory larger sizes and alternative grades. You’ll also find us to be an excellent source for stainless grades 410 and 420 ground parts. In general, a die set is built to punch, cut, shear, form or stretch materials such as metals, ceramics and plastics to be used in manufactured parts. Steel molds are used for die-casting and for molding plastic, ceramic and composite materials.
QDC – Quick Die Change Plates
Often times, stamping companies struggle with the downtime it takes to change dies to run a different product or part. In order to minimize downtime, we suggest using a quick change die system for presses that manufacture multiple patterns of parts. A Quick Die Change plate (QDC) can be attached to the bottom of each die set, allowing your maintenance department to change dies much faster than without. By adding locator pins on your bolster and locator notches on your QDC Plates, machinists can position the die set quickly. The QDC plate can be made a standard size, while accommodating die sets of various sizes. Reconfigurations and updates such as these may also allow you to take advantage of automatic clamping.
Bolster Plates
Amongst presses, there are plates which strengthen, aid, reinforce or fortify these machines. Originally defined and applied to “bolstering” or to supporting the top or the lower plate of a press, the term bolster plate has gained a much broader definition in recent years. Many sub-plates, machine bases, and adapter plates are now recognized as bolster plates.
PGI Steel custom flame cuts thick machine plates to engineered specifications from either a medium carbon AISI 1045 or AISI 4140 or from a mild carbon ASTM A36 plate. We anneal the medium grade steels and stress relieve A36 plate in our own onsite gas furnace before Blanchard grinding them to a normal, precision range of ± 0.005 thickness tolerances. The next step is to set these plates upon one of our bar mills or CNC machining centers where a 3D-modeling program outputs, among others, the correct drilling, tapping, reaming, cutting, and chamfering tools and patterns. We routinely cut, grind & machine the largest of bolsters and machine bases.
Stripper Plates and Adaptor Plates
PGI Steel also manufactures stripper plates. These similarly patterned plates are slightly oversized to the part being cut, stamped or molded, while also being under thickness. As the name suggests, these strip away the parts during the press cycle.
Various adaptor parts are used to adjust the shut height to adjust the stroke of a press. Whether you need precisely paired riser blocks or you need press plates with simple or complex holes or intricately scribed t-slotted lines, count on PGI Steel to manufacture die shoes, sub-plates, parallels, risers, press side frames, and quick change plates for your operation.
Hydraulic Presses & Pre-Presses
For over 50 years PGI Steel has been manufacturing press platens, bolsters, die sets, QDC plates, progressive dies, risers, parallels, stamping plates, mold bases & mold plates, machined blanks, and all types of tooling plates for American press manufacturers, machine shops, metals job Shops and parts manufacturers that work with all types of custom Assembly Presses, Forging Presses, Punch Presses, Stamping Presses, and Laboratory Test Presses.
Whether you work within heavy industrial, automotive, aerospace, plastics, medical, wood/pulp processing, or any other industry that runs hydraulic or pneumatic presses, PGI Steel has the experience to manufacture your plates according to your engineered specifications.
Side Frames
PGI Steel manufactures steel plate side frames for custom built machines.
We stock a large inventory of A36, A572-Grade 50, 1045, 4140, and A514 plates ranging in thicknesses from 1/4″ to 8″ thick.
After being flame cut in our plate cutting department and Blanchard ground to within 0.005″ tolerance levels on our grinders, these A36 steel side frames pictured alongside were drilled and machined upon a Takumi CNC machine.
Heavy Steel Side Plates for Custom Machines
New press calendar machines incorporate an L-Frame and an A-Frame roller system in order to allow the insertion of up to four large rollers. Multiple roller press machines can now handle laminating and coating paper, in addition to printing multi-colored, dual sided, multiple layer paper products, such as calendars and cover papers.
